Pages

Tuesday, April 14, 2015

Overlooked Crowd Funding - Scary Stories: A Documentary

I'd bet a lot of you horror fans out there have at least heard the title of this book series, many of you have probably even read it as kids (or adults even). This series was responsible for turning kids on to reading and even ignited a love of the horror genre in many of its young audience, the founder of this blog being one of them. These three books both inspired and frightened with their folk based stories and still eerie illustrations; they were constantly challenging. The books I am referring to are the Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark trilogy.

There are also those of us who have only heard the titles and the reputation, but for whatever reason have never gotten to read the actual stories. I'm am in this group, but hoping to get my hands on the books and change that. Either way, whether you've read them or not, you still don't know the whole story behind them. And that's where this campaign comes in.

Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark left its mark on a good number of people, enough to inspire documentarian Cody Meirick to start an Indiegogo campaign to make a movie about it. Based out of Chicago, this documentary plans to interview people about the history of gothic children's stories and illustrations, the censorship surrounding children's books, and the efforts that Alvin Schwartz took to find and compile the stories in the books to name a couple. Days after the project began, the Schwartz family contacted Meirick in order express their support for the project.

This campaign doesn't have too much in the way of diverse rewards to choose from so I'll just make due with what they are offering.

Affordable:

$30 will get you a download of the completed film and a thanks for your support in the credits. Pretty bare but a part of your donation will also go to a literacy program, Open Books.

$45 can get you the above reward and also a behind the scenes featurette, which sounds like cool addition to a download-only film. Again, part of your donation goes to Open Books.

Breaking the Piggy Bank:

$110 will get you all of the above rewards (movie and behind the scenes downloads, a thanks in the credits) and also some kind of limited edition artwork. This level of donation will double the amount that will go to the Open Books organization. The organization seems to be more of the focus in this campaign's rewards.

There are a couple of other things to pick from, but the artwork seems to be the only physical thing you can get. After the $110 donation, it jumps to $2100, which allows you to be in the actual film. Still, this sounds very nostalgia heavy, but also like a very interesting project. You can read more about the theory and thought behind it at the project's site. This campaign only has two weeks left, so let's see if we can help it get made.

This project surfaced at a kind of weird time since talk of an animated film, based on a combination of all the books, started over a year ago. CBS was the one who started these talks, and the people who were being attached to it sound very promising. John August, the writer responsible for Big Fish, is one of them. You can find the whole article on Deadline.